My home imbues the deepest pride
No added ciphers, codes to break
Ground yourself for what’s at stake
Read the map, find the point
Grab the shovel to anoint
If you seek the lock and key
You will have to dig down deep
“Read the map, find the point.” I start pacing back and forth across my room. “Find the point. Find the point…”
The woman’s arms are outstretched, pointing in two different directions. There are two points on the map. So we have to figure out which one is the correct “point.” Her right arm points directly atThe Three Shades. I think of the actualThe Three Shadessculpture withinThe Gates of Hellat the Legion of Honor museum, and the inscription just below them:
Abandon Hope
“It’s the wrong way,” I tell myself. “That’sthe clue.”
I lean closer into the mirror, squinting at the object in the woman’s right hand. It’s not a mask. Not binoculars, exactly. But maybe some kind of fancy binoculars. I remember seeing them in a movie once.
Opera glasses!
But why would she be holding opera glasses? I mean, she would need them, I guess, to see all the way from Golden Gate Park to the Legion of Honor. But everything on the map is spread out. It has to mean something else. She needs to get a good look at something. She needs a good view, agreatview, of—
I freeze, completely mid-thought. The next word explodes in my head like a camera flashing. I can barely breathe as I rush over to my desk and flip my laptop open.
San Francisco, I type into the search bar. I click on the maps tab.
I study the north end of the bay, checking over all the landmarks featured in Baker’s clues. But the place I really need to be checking isn’t marked on Gilbert’s map. It falls just outside the boundary. I tilt my head and imagine Golden Gate Park as the long floral dress, superimposing the woman from the drawing onto the map over my screen.
I follow the direction of her left arm as I scroll farther down, moving just south of Golden Gate Park and deeper into my own neighborhood until I see…
The exact same stick figure from the locket.
IknewI had seen that shape before. I had just never recognized it as a person.
Grandview Park.A GIANT BTWN STREETS.
“There it is,” I whisper.
The place where Gilbert Baker buried his treasure.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The stairs in Cam’s house creak under my weight as I climb up to his room. His door is slightly ajar, and I can see his figure twisting up and down through the gap. Chin-ups, I’m guessing.
I tilt the stack of things in my arms against my chest for balance and rap my knuckles against the doorframe.
I hear a thump as Cam hops down from the chin-up bar he jammed into his closet frame sometime during freshman year.
“One second!” he calls.
“It’s me,” I murmur before he can open the door. I don’t want him to be completely surprised when he sees me. And, okay, maybe I’m also hoping to avoid whatever facial expression he’s making at this exact moment.
If he pauses after the forewarning, it’s too short for me to register. He swings his door the rest of the way open.
